Accident
by Elfpen
Summary: "You have to admit," She smoothed out his shirt gently as she could. "It's horribly ironic to last year." "I had thought of that," Jack admitted, glancing away. Jack is in an accident. Phryne is Phryne despite a terrible scare. Post Series 3, references to Series 2. Oneshot.


**A/N:** Alright, I'm brand new to this fandom but hopefully this little oneshot isn't _entirely_ out of character. This is set after the series 3 finale, though there are only minor references to that - mainly it refers back to series 2. But anyway. Enjoy!

* * *

It had been a long time since Jack Robinson had woken up to the sensation of a woman's hands on his body. However, even in those instances of his married past, he recalled experiencing some degree of enjoyment at the feeling. _Now_ was entirely different.

Pain was the forerunning thought in his mind. It radiated from some indistinct but universal locus on his body that made him wish he'd never woken up at all, but barred him from returning to sleep. Second place in thought was the peculiar ambiance of his surroundings; the bed was smaller than he was used to, the room brighter. There was a distant, constant hum of noise as though he were in public.

And then of course there were the hands. He knew they were a woman's hands because no man Jack had ever known could touch that lightly and deftly. She was pulling at the buttons on his shirt and yanking the front open to expose his chest. At this point, Jack felt morally obliged to find out who was taking off his clothes before they'd finished. He pooled his disparate scraps of willpower from their slumber and cracked open his eyes.

"Doctor MacMillan?" He asked. God, was that his voice? He wasn't aware his own voice could _make_ a sound so awful.

"Oh, hello," said Mac coolly, glancing at him sidelong as she bent over his chest. "The dead arise. How do you feel, Inspector?"

Jack's eyebrows twitched in confusion at her comment, and he looked around. He was in a hospital, he realized. He was in a hospital, abed, and he sounded terrible, and Doctor MacMillan was bent over his chest doing… what? He glanced down at his own chest and realized that, sans shirt, his chest was still obscured. Dark red seeped through a bind of white bandages.

"That's my blood," he observed.

"It is," Mac told him, pulling up a chair to sit by him. "I was just replacing the bandages. I would apologize for waking you, but frankly it's a relief. You gave us a bad turn for a stretch there."

Jack hadn't heard much of her response. He was still trying to piece together why on _earth_ he was in a hospital with bloodied bandages holding him together. "I see," He said automatically. After a few more glances around him and a halfhearted jab at his unresponsive memory, Jack looked back at Mac. "What… exactly… did I do to get put in here?" He asked her, eyes serious. Mac took a deep breath, looking upward in recollection.

"Well, that depends on how much you remember. Shall I start with the murder at the quay, or-"

"The Flanagan boy," Jack recalled. Miss Fisher had beaten him to the scene.

"Yes, shot in the back. You found the gun-"

"On the shore two miles south," Jack finished for her.

Mac nodded along and continued, "Phryne tells me that the handle was engraved with the name of Richard Elders, whom you questioned, and he told you that he'd given the gun as a gift to a school friend,"

"John Gourtney," Jack finished, feeling as though he'd gotten a handle back on his memory. "We went after him didn't we? Constable Collins and I?"

"Yes," Mac sat back and crossed her arms. "Surprised you remember all that, what with the mess I found you in."

"Did we catch him?" Jack insisted. He remembered rushing out of the door but nothing of the chase.

"Oh you caught him, alright. Well, I say _you_. Your police car caught _his_ car, the cobblestones caught _him,_ and your steering wheel caught _you_ , but to make it easier, yes, you caught him. Constable Brady is guarding the cell as we speak."

"Constable Brady? What's he doing here?"

"Well, seeing as his dear old boss was on his death bed until a few moments ago, Hugh has asked to have the day off. The commissioner didn't have the heart to say no, for once."

"…death bed?"

Mac sighed heavily, looking at him with a half-blame, half-caring glare that reminded him of cat. "You have seven cracked ribs, four broken, a fractured nose, a sprained wrist, bruised legs, a burn on your left leg, a moderately severe concussion – and a sternum cracked in two." she pointed to his chest bandages. After a moment to let him take this all in, she sighed and told him, "By the time Phryne could telephone me she thought for sure you were gone."

Jack couldn't think of anything to say to that. But… he didn't remember - "Miss Fisher was there?"

"Not in the police car. She followed you in the Hispano." Mac fixed him with a stiffer glare than before. "She saw the crash happen, found you. Apparently held a bank clerk at gunpoint so that he'd let her use the telephone. A charge which I am sure you will be more than happy to make disappear, _Inspector."_

Images and feelings flashed across Jack's memory, familiar but now inversed, when there'd been a dead woman in a car and he'd thought it had been Phryne. He remembered how he'd tried to estrange her for it, how angry he'd been with her. And here he was in a hospital bed with a slew of injuries that even to his untrained medical eye screamed _motorcar accident_. And she'd seen it happen.

"Oh," he said after a long while. Had his wrists not hurt so much he would've pulled up his covers to make himself less visible.

"She, Collins, and Dot are all pacing holes in my waiting room."

"Oh?"

"Yes, and I'd like very much to herd them out and lock the door, but they won't have it until you decide whether or not you're going to die. And you may look like hell, but you'll live. Can I let them in?"

"Oh." Jack said, now almost out of habit. He struggled a bit before saying, "Of course," In a small voice. Mac nodded and stood, leaving Jack to button up his own shirt with injured wrists. He didn't want women seeing him like this, least of all Miss Fisher. She probably had some quip ready to smack him out of his dignity, he wasn't about to make it easier for her by having her see him in partial dress, bandages be damned.

His expectations were shattered when Phryne swept into the room with no hat on her head and no makeup to be seen. She looked, Jack was mortified to realize, as though she'd been _crying._

"Jack," She said, and the only other time he'd heard that tone of voice was when she'd thought her father might've been killed – only this was worse.

"Miss Fisher," he said, automatically attempting to sit up. This was the wrong choice. If he did scream, he didn't mean to, and he didn't realize it until moments after it happened.

"None of that, now," Mac was pushing him gently back into bed. Phryne came around to stand at his side, black bob dangling in front of her face as she looked down at him. Collins and Dot were behind her.

"Thank God you're alright," Dot said, relieved.

"So good to see you awake, Sir," Hugh said, and Jack was equal parts embarrassed and touched to noticed that his right-hand man looked a little red-eyed, too.

"Well, I can't move and I feel like hell itself, but… yes, it's good to see you too, Collins," He said, wishing very much for some of Lord Fisher's nerve tonic. " _Mrs._ Collins." Hugh had only just resumed normal duties after his honeymoon, and Dot smiled at the name.

Mac waited for what she thought was an acceptable pause and then said, "Right. Well, the concussion doesn't _appear_ to have wrecked you beyond repair, and despite all of this," she gestured vaguely to his chest, puffed up with bandages beneath his hospital-issued shirt, "You should make a full recovery. However, it will take a lot of time and a lot of sleep. So: Phryne, Constable, Mrs. Collins, if you will…" She swung her head to the door.

"Of course," Dot said, and Hugh muttered his agreement. "Get well, Inspector," Dot smiled as she walked by.

"I'll handle the Commissioner, Sir, make sure things are looked after until you're fully recovered."

"Thank you, Collins."

"Of course, Sir. Hope to see you on your feet soon."

Phryne was, naturally, the last to leave. She moved as though to leave but then only sat herself down on the edge of his bed. Mac looked up when she did, and Jack was sure the doctor was about to insist that Miss Fisher leave. Instead, Mac gave a tiny sigh and glanced pointedly at Phryne. "I'll just fetch you some more pain tonic, Inspector," she excused herself.

Once she was gone there was only the two of them. Jack feeling awkward and as if he'd been run over by a truck (which was almost true) and Phryne for once looking very _not_ put-together and uncharacteristically somber.

"I'm sorry, Phryne." Jack said quietly.

"Your damn right you are." She didn't even say it in an angry tone and it hurt. "I thought you had died."

"Mmm," Jack groaned, looking down at his chest and sighing from the aches. "I don't blame you."

Despite it, Phryne smiled. Jack found himself thinking that he actually preferred her smile when she wasn't wearing any makeup. He blamed the concussion. Another short pause while Phryne picked at the pilled fabric of his bedclothes. "You have to admit," She smoothed out his shirt gently as she could. "It's horribly ironic to last year."

"I had thought of that," Jack admitted, glancing away from her, remembering how the blood had drained form his face when Collins had called him that day. He shook the memory and turned his eyes back to her hands. He gave a half smile. "To think that my driving skills ended up being even more dangerous than yours," He joked. She tipped up her chin.

"If _I_ had been driving, Jack Robinson, you wouldn't be in bed right now."

"If you had been driving, Miss Fisher, _you_ would be in bed right now – and possibly worse."

The shadow that passed over her face told Jack that she knew exactly what he was talking about and had pondered it long and hard during his slumber. But, being Phryne, the moment was gone and there again was that smirk on her face. She lowered herself languidly to lean across the mattress, so their faces were inches apart. What with the injuries and the waning tonic, Jack could not have moved if he'd tried. He didn't try. "Or," she said, "we could _both_ be in bed." How did she make something so morbid sound like _that?_ "Wouldn't that be something?"

Jack had to breath in shallow breaths not to hurt his chest, or else he'd have sighed heavily through the nose. "Perhaps another time, Miss Fisher," he said, drawing his gaze from her lips to her eyes. Phryne smiled again, and Jack really wished he could tell her how beautiful she was without all the cosmetics.

"Another time."

Mac opened the doors, bearing a small glass and the pain tonic on a tray. Surprisingly, she said nothing while Phryne pulled away from Jack's face, stood, and lingered. Mac changed Jack's bandages and let Phryne watch and wince, even when Jack asked her to look away. She put salve on his burns and put his wrist to rest in ice before she was called away to another patient. "Get some rest," were her last instructions. Jack was already halfway to the point of fulfilling her orders.

"You should go home, Miss Fisher," Jack slurred, tonic blurring his mind as well as his pronunciation.

"And miss the show?" Phryne grinned, coming back over to his bedside. "Not for the world."

"Nothing to see here, jus'a broken down old man,"

"Oh, not so old, I think. You've got a lot to live for yet."

"Mmm," Jack hummed, and no longer had the presence of mind to keep the pure fondness and care out of his face when he looked at her. She'd never tell him, but it unnerved her in the best, most unfamiliar way. "That I have," He said. She beamed.

"I'll hold you to that," she said in a way just suggestive enough to push through his drugged daze and make him roll his eyes.

"I am under the influence of very strong medications, Miss Fisher," Jack slurred as she walked around his bed toward the door. "I am not responsible for anything I say at present."

"Of course you are," Phryne teased, and leaned down to give him a kiss on the cheek that was closer to his mouth than to his ear. "At least this once. Sleep well, Jack." The door clicked shut behind her.

Chest now numbed by medication, Jack did heave a deep sigh. "Damn woman," he whispered to the air. Nevertheless, when he closed his eyes, her smiling face was there. In his dreams there was not a single motorcar.


End file.
